automatic writing connecting with your muses, machines, and spirits

automatic writing:
connecting with your muses, machines, and spirits

a zoom-class on the techniques of "automatic writing" with the poet, concept and performance artist sandra huber (montreal, canada)

what kind of text is considered literary? why are certain texts excluded from any literariness? for years, the canadian poet has been devoting herself to the "misappropriated" writings of spiritist mediums in seances, where no author(s) speak(s) and write(s) anymore, but the subject is spoken and written. in their écriture automatique, the surrealists already referred to old spirit incantations and hoped to trick the writing consciousness. today, the algorithms of the new machines are enough to disconnect our texts from our intentions. thanks to the autocorrect function, for example, or, most recently, with the help of ChatGPT.

sandra huber in the foreword to her treatise “spirit scripts”:
“in our daily lives, our interaction with text is already ‘automatic writing’: autofill features on smartphones make it so that each sms is a collaboration between person and machine, while writing interfaces, such as the one i am using to compose this document, make it so that we all ‘look the same’ in writing. what does it mean to undo how we think of ‘automatic’ and how we think of ‘creative’? what does it mean to summon invisible collaborators such as spirits and avatars?
we have seen how, throughout modern history, knowledges that connect to spirit worlds and divination practices have been violently overridden by colonial, imperial, and rationalistic systems. attempts to contain modes of being and thinking were forcefully put into play in the 16th century, at the same time that witches were being eradicated in europe, that the transatlantic slave trade was taking place, and that the so-called ‘new world’ was facing widespread colonialism. a practice like spirit writing recalls the fact that standardized writing practices have had a violent history and are ready to be unsettled.”

dates

12 units

mon., 22 may: 5 to 8 pm

tues., 23 may: 5 to 8 pm

thurs., 25 may: 5 to 8 pm

fri., 26 may: 5 to 8 pm

(required: internet acces with camera and microphone)

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2 subsidised places
for this class, we offer two subsidised places exempt from participation fee.
please send applications to: sfd@sfd.at including:
- motivational letter (in english)
- short bio (max. 1 page; in english)
deadline: 28 april 2023

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participation fee: 70 €

limited number of participants!

>> registration form

sandra huber

is a writer, researcher, and educator. she holds a phd in interdisciplinary humanities, where she focused on the media and techniques of contemporary witchcraft, and is currently assistant professor and area coordinator of interdisciplinary studies and practices in the fine arts at concordia university. sandra has been engaging with automatic writing / spirit writing for more than 20 years and has published on the topic as well as held residencies and workshops focused on this practice. in 2021, sandra received a grant from the canada council of the arts to develop exercises to help others engage with automatic writing — she'll be presenting these exercises at the sfd workshops, alongside information and resources; ultimately, automatic writing frees the creative spirit while connecting with the spirits, muses, and avatars around us. she currently lives in tio'tia'ke / mooniyang / montreal where she tries to find more time for fresh air, astrology, cats, and sunsets.
in the past, sandra attended classes at the vienna poetry school with anne waldman (usa) and gabriel rosenstock (irl); she also gave a lecture/reading at the sfd festival "the death of the author (reloaded)" in 2014.
publication: assembling the morrow: a poetics of sleep (talonbooks 2014)
sandrahuber.com